Project to help vulnerable children praised

A project that uses state of the art technology to identify vulnerable children before they get to the point of offending has been praised by the Local e-Government Minister for successfully concluding the first phase of its pilot scheme.

The Reducing Youth Offending Generic Solution (RYOGENS) National Project, is one of 23 projects funded by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister as the cornerstones of the Local e-Government programme to e-enable all local authority services by 2005.

RYOGENS is a web-based system that helps different agencies such as the police, health, social services and education record and share concerns about children at risk of getting involved in crime with the aim of taking effective action before its too late.

This National Project is led by a partnership of local authorities who have been developing and piloting the technology for the past year.

Set up to address key issues facing local authorities such as on-line bill payments, customer relationship management and digital TV, the National Projects seek to develop generic solutions to these IT challenges with the aim of making these available to all local authorities.

Local e-Government Minister Phil Hope said: "I'm pleased to see that the National Projects are progressing so well and are on target to assist authorities reach the 2005 target. This is a challenging target for all local authorities but the combined work of the National Projects means they are really leading the way and meeting that challenge."

Following the pilot phase of the RYOGENS project, the technology is now available to any local authority wishing to take it. The next phase of the Local e-Government programme will be focusing on encouraging local take-up of the products of the National Projects to ensure full e-enablement by 2005 across the country.

(gmcg)